Natural ingredients producer Doëhler said the ever-growing demand for naturalness and functionality is firmly cemented as a lifestyle choice – no longer niche and not just an occasional quest to feel good when snacking.

Kinomi blends exotic flavours like Indian green mango and kombu seaweed with nuts including baru - a nutritious but little-known nut from Brazil. “I season lightly so the hero flavour is always the nut," the company's founder says.

The $16.3m ‘snackable’ fruit and vegetable sub-category may not be as big as the $27bn salty snack category, but it is making a big dent into the $1.1bn ‘on-the-go’ snacking sub-category in the US, according to annual Nielsen data, ended May 27, 2017.

Manufacturers are misleading consumers with images of fresh fruit on packaging when the actual fruit content is minimal or even zero, says trade group Freshfel, as it calls for a legal minimum threshold.

Coffee Flour, a firm that started with an idea to take advantage of discarded coffee cherry fruit, is vying for health and nutrition-focused investment partners after recently being selected by the Launch Food Program as a 2017 innovator.